Never mind the bollocks

Mark Steyn’s excellent column on Benghazigate drew on news of the past few days. At several points Mark relied on Glenn Beck’s interview with Charles Woods, the father of fallen former SEAL Tyrone Woods, who died fighting off the terrorists long into the battle at the consulate. Mr. Woods discussed the ceremony at which President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Clinton received the bodies of the four Americans murdered in the attack.

Mark led his column with a quote from Secretary of State Clinton. Clinton sought to console Mr. Woods with a shocking assurance:

“We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.”

Mark quoted Vice President Biden’s tribute to Tyrone Woods:

Charles Woods says that at the ceremony Joe Biden strolled over to him and by way of condolence said in a “loud and boisterous” voice, “Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?”

Mark then paused to pass judgment on Biden:

One assumes charitably that the vice president is acknowledging in his own inept and blundering way the remarkable courage of a man called upon to die for his country on some worthless sod halfway across the planet. But the near-parodic locker-room coarseness is grotesque both in its inaptness and in its lack of basic human feeling for a bereaved family forced to grieve in public and as crowd-scene extras to the political bigshot. Just about the only formal responsibility a vice president has is to attend funerals without embarrassing his country. And this preening buffoon of pseudo-blue-collar faux-machismo couldn’t even manage that.

Beck’s interview with Mr. Woods also includes a disparaging if less concrete description of his encounter with President Obama at the same ceremony.